Charles Babbage Institute
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The Charles Babbage Institute (also titled the Center for the History of Information Technology) is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the post-World War II history of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking.[1]
In addition to holding important historical archives in a number of different media, its staff of historians and archivists are dedicated to conducting and publishing historical and archival research and promoting the study of the history of information technology internationally. It also carries out and encourages research in the area and related topics (such as archival methods); to do this, it offers graduate fellowships, and sponsors conferences and publications. It also serves as a general clearinghouse for people interested in, and resources on, the history of information technology.
Also valuable for researchers and historians are its extensive collection of oral history interviews with important early figures in the field (most of which were conducted by CBI historians); with the poorly documented state of many early computer developments, which often had no formal documentation at all, these oral histories provide an irreplacable resource.
The archival collection also contains manuscripts; records of professional associations; corporate records (including the Burroughs Corporate Records and the Control Data Corporate Records, among many others; trade publications; periodicals; manuals and product literature for obsolete systems, photographic material (stills and moving), and a variety of other reference material.
It is now a center at the University of Minnesota system, and is located at its Twin Cities, Minnesota campus, where it is housed in the Elmer L. Andersen Library.
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[edit] History
It was founded in 1978 as the International Charles Babbage Society, and initially operated in Palo Alto, California.
In 1979, the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) became a principal sponsor of the Society, which was renamed the Charles Babbage Institute.
In 1980, the Institute moved to the University of Minnesota, which contracted with the principals of the Charles Babbage Institute to sponsor and house the Institute. A new entity, the Charles Babbage Foundation, was created to help support and govern the Institute, in partnership with the University. In 1989, the University assumed complete authority for the Institute, which became an organized research unit of the University.
[edit] References
- ^ Bruce H. Bruemmer, "The Charles Babbage Institute: The Center for the History of Information Processing, University of Minnesota", in Cynthia A. Steinke (ed.), History of Science and Technology: A Sampler of Centers and Collections of Distinction, The Haworth Press, 1994.
